Is light rail really turn of the century technology?

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Yes it is. Last century. http://www.historylink.org/features/valley.htm

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 21, 1999

Answers

Now for the question of the night. What is the average speed of a transit bus, and how does it compare to the average speed of light-rail?

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswind.net), December 22, 1999.

well since a bus spends more time sitting still than it does moving...the average speed is probably somewhere around 3 MPH..

Light rail???? probably about the same..

these non-stop light rail trips are some kind of twisted fantasy of the socialist crowd

-- maddjak (maddjak@hotmail.com), December 22, 1999.


Actually, it's better than that maddjak-

For transit bus 13 mph average speed.

For light rail 14 mph average speed.

Next question: What is the average total trip time (one-way) for a commuter who uses transit?

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 22, 1999.


Craig I think they must figure their averages from a different point. An employee of mine was given one of those sooper VWs a few years ago. It was high powered, very fast and had major computer components.

It gave him running commentary on fuel consumption average speed. How mush time he had left before the fuel ran out at this rate of speed etcetcetc. And it kept track of all this stuff so it could be accessed. He was afraid if his parents looked they would see his average speed was WAAAAAY higher than it was supposed to be.

But as he sat at a stop light or just sat with the engine running the average speed kept dropping because the amount of time it would take him to go a mile when he was sitting still really screwed up the averages!! And going in reverse was even worse

-- maddjak (maddjak@hotmail.com), December 22, 1999.


What this really means, for light rail, is that if you want to go from the UW to Sea-Tac, from the time the first train which arrives and you board (which, statistically is half the mean interval between trains from the time you actually arrived at the platform) DEPARTS the UW, it will be not quite an HOUR AND A HALF to get to Sea-Tac, if all goes well. If more stations are added along the way (such as at Southcenter) this will increase. For the eventual grand master plan that the advocates envision, going from Lakewood to Everett by light rail, about 4 hours each way. So no, your wrong, it isn't longer than that, it just SEEMS like it (and there are multiple research papers on the USDOT website concerning PERCEPTIONS of riders that agree with that analysis. Thank God. 14 mph is slow enough.

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 22, 1999.


Craig,

20 minutes?

Do you know the average speed of a BART train? I think it is somewhat faster than 14 mph. My perception was that it did little to alleviate congestion in SF Bay area.

-- Marsha (acorn_nut@hotmail.com), December 22, 1999.


40 minutes.

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 22, 1999.

Average speed for heavy rail (like Bart), 21 mph. Source is: http://www.bts.gov/btsprod/nts/apxa/transt98.html

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 22, 1999.

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